Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Higher power requirements needed as electricity cap revealed

A leak has revealed the lease between Doncaster Council, which is seeking to reopen DSA, and landowner Peel, states that electricity use on the premises by the council “shall not at any time exceed 1MVA”.

While airports do not publish MVA electrical capacity details as standard, in 2019 London City Airport announced it was doubling its capacity from 3.6MVA to 7MVA as part of a £500 million development programme. LCA’s most recent full accounts state it handled 3.6 million passengers in 2024.

A section of the current DSA lease entitled ‘Option to Determine’ states it needs to handle one million passengers a year and 13,000 tonnes of freight by 2031 and 2.3 million passengers a year and 25,000 tonnes of freight by 2036 to avoid triggering break clauses. However the targets and dates are currently being renegotiated with Peel.

A DSA project spokesperson said the site had previously operated with the 1MVA limit prior to its closure in 2022 but confirmed talks are already under way about the need for higher power requirements on the wider site “in the medium to long term”.

DSA is intended to be the centrepiece of a broader strategic development called South Yorkshire Airport City, with nearby logistics park Gateway East becoming home to sustainable aviation and advanced manufacturing businesses.

It has previously been confirmed up to £160m of spending is needed on infrastructure works, “in particular power”, at Gateway East. A SYMCA report said in September: “Whilst the public sector would not be expected to bear the full cost of these it is likely that some intervention would be required.”

The DSA spokesperson said: "When the airport was previously operating with circa 1.4m passengers per year, it was doing so with 1MVA.

"As with the growth of any commercial development, the wider site has higher power requirements, which will be worked through as plans develop. We are engaging very positively with other parties, including Peel, on addressing power requirements in the medium to long term, as well as the Distribution Network Operator and National Grid.”

The council and Peel are currently renegotiating the wider lease, with South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority not prepared to release funding for the project until several changes are made.

In November, a council report said the “most significant changes” to the lease relate the ‘options to determine’ section “where the terms and period have been extended due to the delay in opening and the advice provided via the SYMCA modelling undertaken on the passenger and cargo forecasts”.

The revised figures which have been put to Peel have not been made public but in September, SYMCA said Peel had committed “in principle” to reducing the 2036 targets to “achievable levels”.

SYMCA said the overall project is affordable based on ‘high case’ traffic estimates suggesting passenger numbers of 1.1m in 2031 and 1.9m in 2036; 400,000 below the current break clause level.

Peel did not wish to comment.